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Franco Teases ‘Hard R’ Multiple Man X-Men Film, like Logan, Deadpool

Confirming previous reports that a Multiple Man film is in development at Fox, James Franco has teased that the movie may aim for an R rating, much like Logan and Deadpool, which have pushed ratings boundaries for the genre over the past few years.

“I do have a superhero that I am developing,” Franco said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I don’t know how much I can say. But I will say I am producing and performing in it. It’s early stages. I think probably what I can say is, like anything, there’s a need to develop more.”

The film will be developed by Ramona Films, owned and operated by Franco and his brother, Dave Franco. The Multiple Man film won’t just be about making and R-rated superhero movie, though. The brothers want to break new ground in the genre.

“Our bottom line M.O. is, how can we push this into new ground? A little bit, but still make it entertaining?” Franco said. “[But] what I love about what Simon Kinberg and Fox and the X-Men people have done with Deadpool and Logan — it took a while to get there, maybe 10 years — but they are going to go hard R. And we’re going to take this superhero thing and really just push it into a new genre. So we’re working with Simon Kinberg on an X-Men property.”

Created by Len Wein, Chris Claremont and John Buscema for 1975’s Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4, the Multiple Man was a recurring character in Uncanny X-Men throughout the ’80s before landing a starring role in Peter David and Larry Stroman’s fan-favorite X-Factor run of the ’90s. Fading away in the late ’90s to early ’00s, the character rose to prominence yet again in the mid-’00s after starring in a Marvel MAX miniseries, simply titled Madrox, again under the pen of David.

Multiple Man is an upcoming movie produced by and starring James Franco. There is currently no release date for the film, though it’s believed to be set in Fox’s X-Men universe. The character has only appeared once before, in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, and was played by Eric Dane.